The Evolution of Teacher Certification and the Qualifications to Teach in Four States, 1890-1930.

Abstract

The period between 1890 and 1930 witnessed a dramatic change in state policies for certifying and training teachers in public elementary and, high schools. During this period, educational professionals who favored centralized control of education used their growing influence to reform teacher certification and the qualifications required to teach. At the same time, a series of demographic and economic trends also influenced efforts to make certification follow specific state standards. Despite the current debate about teacher certification, the history of the teacher qualifications has not been fully explored. This dissertation adds to the understanding of this development by examining the evolution of teacher certification from primarily a function of local government with minimal requirements to that of a state action requiring both a specified amount of subject matter and pedagogical knowledge. This study investigates how economic trends, demographic changes, and efforts to professionalize education influenced these qualifications between 1890 and 1930. This dissertation examines how these factors influenced teacher certification and qualifications in four states: Michigan, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Virginia. Using state superintendent and board of education reports from the four states, reports of the U.S. Commissioner of Education, the Biennial Survey of Education; reports issued by the U.S. Office of Education on the status of teacher certification, and dissertations from the case study states, this dissertation constructs a new, detailed narrative of the evolution of teacher certification and qualifications in the U.S. in this period. A key finding from this study is that the unprecedented growth of high school enrollments and graduation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries played a particularly important role in the shaping the nature and content of teacher certification. High schools aided efforts to create stronger standards for teacher certification in both the supply and demand side of the equation. For example, high schools not only provided better educated candidates for teacher certification thus helping state educational leaders to raise the bar in terms of the qualifications demanded of prospective teachers but also created a wide range of new teaching positions due to the expansion of high school curricula between 1890 and 1930.